Topical Tropes

These are what we call the 'YMMV items.' Things that some people find in this work. We call them 'your mileage might vary' because not everyone sees these things in the same way. This starts discussions in the trope lists, a thing we don't want. Please use the discussion page if you'd like to discuss any of these items.

Alternate Character Interpretation: The debate over Lara's effect on female video game characters will probably never be settled. Some say she was a pioneer in an era when female main characters (especially in action games) were exceedingly rare. Others say she did more harm than good through her over-sexualization.

There's also several interpretations of the character of Lara herself, and whether she's borderline sociopath with no respect for the places she raids, or if she's just a Jerk with a Heart of Gold and Anti-Hero.

Regardless, her sexuality was often a talking point during the development of many games, typically balancing between making her more real/less archetypical and retaining her iconic nature as well as characteristic sexuality. This tended to show up in the marketing as well where on one hand, models were hired to portray Lara in real life (a precursor to modern cosplay sponsoring and such) and yet despite being little more than well... models to stand next to booths, they were often given actual training in Lara-esque skills. Conversely, her contemporary (Samus Aran) has done the reverse - she started off as a masked mercenary of indeterminate origin and gender and has, over time, become more and more sexualized with emphasis on that fact. Whatever Lara's effect, certainly there was one and if it was not solely her fault, then it was her generation and the next generation of characters that she helped lead the way for.

It may have been a marketing gimmick, but it never actually came up within the games themselves. Lara's iconic blue tank top and khaki shorts are actually a pretty reasonable clothing choice for an outdoorswoman in arid or tropical climates.

Base Breaker: Kurtis Trent from Angel of Darkness, and, to a lesser extent, Alister Fletcher from the first Crystal Dynamics reboot.

Broken Base: The fanbase was incredibly divided upon the release of Angel of Darkness. Then Legend was released. The fanbase has never been the same since. More recently, the fandom has become very divided over the second reboot.

Designated Hero: A criticism of the later games on the PS1 is that Lara turns into this, with the enemies in the games including not just the usual criminals and animals that stand in her way, but also police officers and security guards.

Evil Is Sexy: Doppelganger is more into tight leather than Lara is, although apparently not enough for Zip to tell them apart. Also, Amanda Evert really seems into black leather.

Fair for Its Day: Cracked for one, in its discussion of the slip of the mouse that led to her enlarged breasts and subsequent sexualized marketing campaign, takes this stance. Pointing out that before Lara, the majority of women in games were either hostages or nonexistent, they mention that Lara is strong, independently wealthy, beautiful, smart and great at what she does, and has shown that a female-driven game could sell, and if it took an overinflated chest to start blazing that trail, maybe that's just the way it is.

Fan-Preferred Couple: Would you believe Lara/Doppleganger? At least it's the one that acquires most fanart.

Likewise, insisting that every game in the franchise is set within the same continuity (there are in fact three separate ones within the "main" series due to two reboots) is likely to irritate quite a few fans. Even more so if you try to bring the movie and the comics into it. Note that this has not stopped even some fans from insisting that they're all part of the same continuity.

Narm: Lara's drowning animation in TR III. Once the Oxygen Meter hits the bottom, she promptly goes into a random spastic flail. Said flail lasts roughly five seconds, give or take. Meaning she had five seconds of air left that apparently was held in reserve simply for a spastic flailing drowning scene. A drama queen to the end.

It's probably meant to represent what is cheerfully called 'the rigours', which is the agony a person goes through when water first hits the lungs when they drown. This actually does last around five seconds.

Von Croy's death at the beginning of Angel of Darkness. From the same game, there's also the apparent demise of Kurtis.

The ending of The Last Revelation. Of course, Lara turns out to have survived, but the ending, especially at the time the game was released, comes as a huge shock.

The death of Alister in Underworld, not to mention Amelia Croft's fate.

Porting Disaster: The PC version has no event music (although it came with a few unique ambient themes), although later versions fixed this problem.

The PS2 and Wii ports of Underworld. The developers really didn't care at all. The PS2 version, in particular, has often been compared- unfavorably- to Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness on the same console. (Oddly, the fanbase seems to like the Wii version much more than the PS2 version, though the differences are minimal. The Wii version contains a few exclusive puzzles and a few more enemies compared to the PS2 version).

Seinfeld Is Unfunny: As with many games from this era, it's easy to take for granted just how revolutionary a game like this was back in 1996, and how it influenced numerous adventure games afterwards.

She's also frequently seen as little more than a sexist fantasy, not knowing that Lara was a huge step forward in strong, female leads in video games. For some idea of just where female characters were in gaming at the time, consider that Duke Nukem 3D was released in the same year.

The One-Winged Angel form of Kristina Boaz from Angel of Darkness. The controls are a bit messed up, and the game gives you no hint about what the hell you're supposed to do. Made worse by the fact that you have to fight the two hardest bosses in the game Boaz and Proto with Kurtis, who is only armed with a wimpy pistol and a few clips of ammo. Lara has all the nice weapons and tons of ammo, but doesn't really need it.

Then there's Dr. Willard. You have to be extremely quick and focused in getting the various MacGuffin items into their proper areas, or suffer from its highly damaging attacks, one of which is a homingOne-Hit Kill.

The classic series went through some shades of the trope; The first game was all about the tombs, but the second game introduced a few levels that were set in modern areas, like the opera house and the oil rig, and the fans didn't like Lara exploring anything that wasn't a tomb. The third game had even more levels set in cities and other areas where people inhabited, causing some fans to dub the game as "City Raider".

They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: A common consensus amongst fans is that while Angel Of Darkness was a train wreck in terms of gameplay, the storyline and atmosphere were some of the best in the series.

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